


summer skin

by sawuhs



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:33:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawuhs/pseuds/sawuhs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don’t leave, Loki hears Tony whispering, the way a coward begs for something, but it’s because they’re both cowards, that Loki lulls himself into sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	summer skin

**squeaky swings and tall grass**

There is no real reason why Loki is here, standing by the balcony like he doesn’t belong, because he doesn’t belong— apart _from—_ but Tony is asking, so Loki is quick to say _Thor is off gallivanting with that female human of his,_ and lie, _I just thought I might grace you with my presence since you would have missed me._ He lies because he may just be the one who has missed, lies because humans aren’t supposed to mean anything to gods, evil, like him. Loki thinks about how Tony isn’t supposed to have left an impression on him, and says nothing about how he might just be starting to regret coming here in the first place.

 _Huh,_ Tony says without so much as looking up from his Stark phone, _funny._ His response makes Loki raise a questioning eyebrow, then as if on cue, Tony starts again with, _I was actually just thinking about you,_ and because his eyes are still glued to the screen, Tony doesn’t catch the growing smile playing on Loki’s lips that he tries to hide.

**the longest shadows ever cast**

“So are you here to kill me?” asks Tony, hours later after the phone has finally been discarded somewhere on the couch and drinks have been downed by them both. “Because if you are, I have something to say about that.”

When Loki chuckles, Tony’s eyes narrow almost dangerously, and no one misses the way the grip Tony has on his glass tightens and doesn’t let loose even after Loki says, “No, I am not.”

“Well?” Tony spits without venom, leg bouncing from the countless scenarios he sees running around in his own head. “You gonna tell why you're here, or not? I don’t have all day, and even if I do, it’s really not going to be wasted on you, _mate._ ”

Loki’s laughing again, but this time it’s at the foreign word he’s never heard much people use before, so he says, “Mate? Anthony, darling, we have yet to even court each other. I would _never_ be your mate, you foolish mortal.”

“Darling, huh?” Tony hums just before he takes a sip from his drink, but it’s really just to cover up his smile. “And I see we’re already on first name basis, _so._ ”

The tension in the air disperses just like that, even if thoughts linger in Tony’s head that he’s sure he’ll find answers to eventually anyway, but won’t, and Loki licks his lips slowly, says, “Only if we are to follow _my_ lead, love.”

**the water’s warm and children swim**

If there’s one thing Loki is good at, it’s lying, and perhaps that is the reason why it is days later—give Tony some credit for waiting—that they’re both lounging, naked as naked can be, on Tony’s bed, the temperature in Tony’s room chilly enough to laze on a burning hot day like this. And if their bodies are touching, it’s only just, because Loki won’t let himself get sentimental about a mortal, and Tony can’t let himself get close to anyone at all.

 _Are you going to tell me how long you’re going to stay here for,_ Tony asks, his words harsh, are always harsh and direct to build himself walls to hold him safe. His eyes trace over the expanse of Loki’s skin his fingers itch to touch, and they twitch like it’s some sort of disease.

He’s expected the question, Loki, but he had never expected that Tony would have let him even stay a night in the first place, and it’s been days, and.

 _Perhaps until my idiot brother wishes to return Asgard,_ Loki tells Tony, a half-truth, for he wants to put Tony to the test, see how long this will last between them, not that he expects it to last to begin with, but, you know, and he says again, _eager to have me thrown out already?_

The next few words Tony says leaves Loki smiling, making him sit up, seconds before he’s throwing his head back in laughter, then winking saucily Tony, but Tony’s fingers are still twitching, and by the time he reaches out to touch, Loki’s already off the bed and walking towards the bathroom.

**and we frolicked about in our summer skin**

 

**I don't recall a single care**

“You’ve got to put some clothes on at some point, Tony,” is Pepper saying with a scowl, arms crossed, and foot tapping. She turns a blind eye to Loki in Tony’s bed, and she’s most definitely not trying to even look at Tony standing before in his all naked glory, then again, she has seen worse when it comes to Tony, and always will have.

“ _But,_ ” Tony says, holding both hands up in Pepper’s face the way he always does when he’s trying to come up with excuses he honestly knows he won’t be able to get away with, “it’s _summer._ Clothes shouldn’t be allowed in summer.”

Loki laughs at the way they interact, which makes Tony and Pepper’s heads snap to look at him in confusion with simultaneous _what_ ’s. Still tangled in the sheets, Loki flips to his stomach and shakes his head, grinning at them, “Nothing.”

**just greenery and humid air**

They do put clothes on eventually, eventually being a week later, after Pepper finally has had enough and had threatened to get in contact with Thor, and even though Tony knows she could have done something like this earlier, because Pepper is brilliant, brilliant Pepper, Tony says nothing about how Pepper knows him in ways she really shouldn’t, and how he’s thankful for having her around. Tony tells himself that the reason why he puts on clothes is really because he doesn’t want to see Thor, but it’s not.

 _So what exactly is Miss Potts to you,_ asks Loki, nursing a cup of tea, seated next to Tony on the couch. Their eyes don’t meet, but Tony can already tell that Loki has seen the way he and Pepper are, anyone can easily tell, even a child, so Tony admits, _another one of my fuck-ups._

Glancing over to where Tony’s leg is bouncing, again, Loki takes in a small sip of his berry tea, and doesn’t say how much he can see Pepper loves him. What he also doesn’t say is how jealous he is of this, and what he doesn’t notice is he has someone like Pepper, too. It’s ironic, he doesn’t know, how much he and Tony are so alike.

When Tony’s eyes catch Loki’s, they both break into a half-desperate smile, as if they both want something so much more from each other that they dare not ask. _A mortal can give me nothing,_ Loki thinks, and Tony tells himself that he’ll never be able to love somebody the way they can love him.

**then Labour day came and went**

“I made contact with Thor yesterday,” Loki says, swinging his legs back and forth over Tony’s work bench, his eyes watching closely for Tony’s reaction to what he’s about to let him know. He sees Tony’s eyebrows raise in surprise before Tony puts down his screwdriver and look up at him, saying, “Oh?”

Nodding, Loki replies with, “Mmhmm. He tells me he shall be returning to Asgard in the following week.” He pauses, having noticed the way Tony’s eyes have dropped to look at anything else but Loki, like he has something to say.

“Have you something to say about that, Anthony?” Loki murmurs, unsure if he wants an actual answer to his question, knows that things aren’t always what they seem, a god can hope and pray too, but Tony is looking back up at him again, a smile forcefully hiding what Loki already knows Tony won’t say, and Tony jokes, “That’s one hell of a holiday for him, eh?”

This time, it’s Loki who has to smile forcefully when he says, “And for me, too.”

**and we shed what was left of our summer skin**

 

**on the night you left I came over**

It starts with Tony still being awake just minutes before midnight, then knowing that after the next minute passes by, it will be the last day that he ever gets to spend with Loki. By then, they have both long ignored the warnings that still flare in their heads, and their bodies are pressed skin to skin. So with his finger running along the dip of Loki’s collarbone, Tony sweeps his finger up, and cups Loki’s cheek in his hand.

He’s awake, Loki, but he keeps his eyes closed and his breathing shallow, curious as to what Tony will be doing next. The word _sentiment_ jumps about in his head the way Tony’s leg does when Tony has ideas, and Loki twitches just once, which makes Tony’s hand retract quickly, but it hurries back as soon as Tony thinks that Loki is sleeping once more.

 _Don’t leave,_ Loki hears Tony whispering, the way a coward begs for something, but it’s because they’re both cowards, that Loki lulls himself into sleep.

**and we peeled the freckles from our shoulders**

Loki stirs a mere hour later to find that Tony has fallen asleep, and selfishly, he wakes Tony up by dipping his finger into Tony’s entrance where it’s still wet with Loki’s come, whispering, “Wake up, Anthony. I wish to have you once more.”

“Fuck off, Lokes,” Tony mumbles, a nickname that Loki has disapproved of ever since the first time Tony had said it in a drunken state, but eventually grew fond of, not that he’ll ever admit. “’m try’na sleep here.”

“Wake up,” is Loki saying again, voice soft and velvety, lips over a vein on Tony’s neck, his, now, two fingers searching for home in Tony, making Tony squirm slightly as his breathing hitches, and Tony’s moaning, “ _Loki._ ”

Soon, a drowsy Tony is hooking a leg over the edge of the bed, moaning languidly as Loki’s fingers work at him, hips rolling lazily, but it’s clear that Tony’s awake now, and as he watches Tony bite his own lip and eyes flutter open, Loki’s whispering, “That’s a good pet.”

The second Tony’s leg is back up on the bed with his toes bunched at the sheets, Loki decides that instead of Tony’s hips moving to his fingers, he much prefers that Tony takes it like the good pet he is supposed to be, and holds Tony still with just an arm, then his fingers are gone, and he’s sliding himself into Tony with one slow yet sure thrust.

Tony’s foggy eyes are begging for Loki to go faster, which makes Loki tut, “Patience, darling.”

From the way Loki notices Tony’s cock twitch, he can tell that Tony is keening for Loki to hurry up, for Loki to go at him harder. But Loki has Tony held fast, so he fucks Tony in gradual increases, until Tony’s wide awake and muttering, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” then coming between them with his entire body shaking.

“Liked that, didn’t you?” Loki teases, but he pauses just to kiss Tony quick before he starts moving again, shoving himself into Tony until he’s far gone just so he doesn’t have to think about how he’s going to miss this stupid mortal of his.

**our brand new coats so flushed and pink**

When they finally have had their fill of sleep, it’s a little past eight. It had been funny the first time they had found out that sleeping for short hours is something they both shared in common. _More time to fuck,_ Tony had told Loki with a smirk, and Loki had responded with, _and you were so against having a cock in you the first time, love._ Tony had scowled and tried to deny Loki sex that day, but needless to say, that didn’t even last an hour.

When they are both awake, Tony is grumbling about how it wasn’t fair of Loki last night, that he was having a perfectly good dream. Loki says nothing about how Tony had been holding onto him tightly seconds before he had drifted back to sleep, and Tony remembers nothing of it.

 _I want pancakes,_ Loki demands suddenly, shutting Tony up. Pouting childishly at Loki, Tony tells Loki to go shove it up his ass. _You would deny me my request for one last breakfast with you,_ Loki whispers soft, but Tony freezes up not because of those words, but because of the way Loki is holding his chin and looking into his eyes.

 _We can have pancakes,_ Tony breathes, his own eyes softening with longing for words he wants to say, and yet clouding with fear for words he is afraid will be denied once spoken aloud. _Who else is gonna make you burnt ones, anyway?_

**and I knew your heart I couldn't win**

Midday comes with a click of a tongue, the morning spent with Loki laughing as Tony tries not to burn the kitchen down, making subpar pancakes only after the sixth try, but Loki enjoys them wholeheartedly, for sentiment for this human has already long seeded in his chest. Once more, it’s something that he will never admit.

“You gonna ask for a last lunch too, Lokes?” Tony kids, but Loki’s rolling his eyes and saying seriously, “No.”

Instead, they dwell in each other’s skin the entire afternoon, both wanting so much more than what they have right now; Tony wanting to tell Loki to stay, and Loki not wanting to leave. There is no point for sentiment, Loki lies to himself, while Tony convinces himself that no good will come out of anyone being with him. Someone is going to get hurt at the end of it, they both think, so why make the journey?

And if they are to kiss at any point through this afternoon, their lips will always part from one another’s unwillingly, as though they are trying to say without words to each other what they are really thinking and feeling.

**cause the seasons change was a conduit**

The evening starts with them seated quietly by the couch, their hands clasped tight together, and not at all focusing on the television before them, but _when_ Loki is leaving. Waiting for Thor to appear is a pain to them both, and they both wish that Thor would just never arrive so that the moment will never have to come for them to part ways.

But they both know that the moment will, so it’s no surprise to either of them that as the seconds tick by, their fingers untangle and their hands slowly let go of each other the way they know they must. They drift apart in the hour, repressing memories they simply cannot hold in their minds just to make it all easier. _What cowards we are,_ they both think and don’t say, but they still do nothing about it.

By the time Thor’s arrival is announced, Tony and Loki are each sitting at the ends of the couch, Tony with his leg bumping up and down, biting his lip nervously, and Loki with his hand holding his head up by the chin on the arm rest, blank eyes cast into the distance.

 _This is it,_ they’re both saying in their heads as they glance at each other, tensed smiles stretching over their teeth. Even in this last second, Loki is wishing for the mortal to beg for something different, and Tony is wishing for the god to be selfish just once more.

Moments past, and this doesn’t happen, so Loki’s dusting his pants and standing up, saying, _Well, I suppose I shall have to leave now._ It’s hard to nod, but Tony does as he swallows, then stands up too, but he doesn’t know at all what to say.

 _So,_ they both start at the same time, then smile awkwardly at each other, and Loki says, _Farewell, Anthony._ Tony doesn’t reply, because he really can’t, his charismatic tongue turned to lead, so Loki is the one to nod this time, not wanting to observe Tony’s expressions how he usually is always wanting to, then makes his leave without another word, both their hearts strung tight. Loki doesn’t turn back, and Tony can’t make himself watch Loki walk away.

And if that night, Thor notices that Loki’s eyes are wet as they approach Bifrost site, he will not question Loki the way Pepper will not question Tony when she catches him curled up in the spot that Loki usually takes in his bed.

**and we left our love in our summer skin**


End file.
